Practicing PTE teachers employed by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) have finally started to receive their letters of deployment.
TSC will deploy 1,000 teachers to teach in secondary school. The deployed teachers will start at job grade C2 and later move to C3 upon completion of three years as stipulated in Career Progression Guidelines.
“Successful candidates under this category shall be appointed at T-Scale 7, Grade C2 under the Career Progression Guidelines for Teachers and shall be deployed to secondary schools where vacancies exist,” TSC said in the advert in July 2021.
The Commission advertised 1,000 deployment posts in July this year for practicing P1 certificate holders to apply.
TSC highlighted the following requirements for one to qualify for promotion and deployment to secondary school;
i) Be a Kenyan citizen;
ii) Be a holder of a P1 Certificate;
iii) Be a holder of a Bachelor’s Degree in Education with 2 teaching subjects;
iv) Must have attained at least c+ (Plus) mean grade at Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) or its equivalent and C+ (Plus) or it’s equivalent in the two teaching subjects;
v) Must be serving under Teachers Service Commission.
Already a total of 2,000 P1 graduate teachers were promoted to teach in secondary schools in the last two years.
TSC had advertised 1,000 deployment posts in 2019 and another 1,000 in September last year and has finished issuing deployment letters for the the successful applicants.
The Commission posted teachers with both Art and Science combinations to secondary schools.
Though some teachers complained on the Commission criteria on deploying teachers TSC said deployment will be done based on availability of teaching vacancy.
However most teachers are still hopeful the Commission will lower grades and use less stringent terms to allow them teach in junior secondary schools.
In July 2021 TSC improved salaries of teachers. The salary changes were as a result of a CBA signed between the Commission and teachers unions Knut, Kuppet and Kusnet.
From July 2021 a deployed teacher at C2 takes home shs 34,955 at minimum in basic pay and shs 43,694 at maximum.
The teacher enjoys a commuter allowance of shs 5,000 a house allowance of shs 7,500 for those who are not in any municipality and a leave allowance of shs 6,000 paid once yearly. Those in hardship areas enjoy hardship allowance of shs 10,900.
The teacher will then move automatically to Grade C3 after completing three years as outlined in CPG.
In C3 he will earn shs 43,154 basic pay at minimum and sh 53,943 at maximum.
TSC is currently facing huge teacher shortage. The Commission will require at least 36,000 new teachers to teach in junior secondary.
TSC announced that only high school teachers will be trained to handle Grade 7, 8 and 9 which are the junior secondary classes.
TSC said at least 60,000 high school teachers will, in March and April next year, be trained in preparation for the rollout of junior secondary.
Primary school teachers used to get automatic promotion after graduation in institutions of higher learning.
The teachers would receive acknowledgment letters which would be followed with changing of job group.
However this changed in 2014 after TSC stopped Schemes of Service and adopted Career Progression Guidelines (CPG) for teachers.
Most primary school teachers have been receiving acknowledgement letters but without any promotion.
The affected teachers include;
1) Diploma and Degree in Special Needs Education
2) Diploma and Degree in Early Childhood Development Education
3) Diploma and Degree in Education (Primary option)
4) Diploma in Education (Secondary option)
5) Degree in Education (Secondary option) but lacking C+ at KCSE or C+ in teaching subjects.
TSC is currently implementing Teacher Professional Development (TPD) as form of promoting teachers.
According to TSC teachers will be issued with a renewable teaching certificate after every five years.
Teachers will study 6 TPD modules for a period of 30 years. The modules are divided into chapters. Teachers will pay for the modules which cost sh 6,000 yearly.